bloodhound

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

n. One of a breed of hounds with a smooth coat, drooping ears, sagging jowls, and a keen sense of smell.

n. Informal A relentless pursuer.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

n. A large scenthound famed for its ability to follow a scent many days old, over vast distances. This dog is often used as a police dog to track missing people, fleeing suspects, or escaped prisoners.

n. A detective or other person skilled at finding people or clues.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

n. A breed of large and powerful dogs, with long, smooth, and pendulous ears, and remarkable for acuteness of smell. It is employed to recover game or prey which has escaped wounded from a hunter, and for tracking criminals. Formerly it was used for pursuing runaway slaves. Other varieties of dog are often used for the same purpose and go by the same name. The Cuban bloodhound is said to be a variety of the mastiff.

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

n. A variety of dog with long, smooth, and pendulous ears, remarkable for the acuteness of its smell, and employed to recover game or prey which has escaped, tracing a wounded animal by the blood it has spilled (whence its name), or by any other effluvium or halitus left on a trail which it follows by scent.

It was natural, of course, that he should be called a bloodhound; and it did not occur to any one in Regina that his height, his fleetness, and his shaggy black and iron-gray coat were anything but typical of the bloodhound.

And in a room that was quiet and sunny, working with a little complacent pucker of the lips occasionally, or raising his eyebrows and adjusting his spectacles in a pause of doubt, he looked anything but sinister, anything but the traditional "bloodhound" on the train in a man-hunt.

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"I pulled on some clothes and went downstairs. There was a gaunt man with lugubrious features standing on the doorstep. He looked as close to a bloodhound as one can get without actually having a tail and barking."